Sensors are used in a wide variety of applications. As manufacturing techniques continue to allow smaller and smaller sensor designs, sensors are becoming even more widespread. Due to their small size, the use of MEMS sensors is becoming commonplace in areas never thought possible. In all these various applications, the sensors must somehow be mounted or packaged to allow them to perform properly. An effective package must address a number of engineering requirements and is preferably easily manufactured at as low a cost as possible.
One set of problems that sensor packaging must overcome is created by thermal expansion. As may be appreciated, there are thermal concerns for very small sensors like MEMS. The sensor is so small, distortion and disruption of the measured quantity may be significantly affected by thermal mismatch or other thermal issues between the sensor and the packaging or surroundings.
In addition, in many embodiments, the sensor is often required to be hermetically sealed to the packaging. Trying to hermetically seal the sensor to the packaging in a cost effective easily manufactured package also creates challenges.
Accordingly, packaging of MEMS sensors is an important part of a successful implementation. Sensor design has rapidly improved in recent times. Sensor packaging must keep pace. US Patent Application No. 2015/0369684 filed on Jun. 20, 2014, discloses a plurality of embodiments for sensor packaging and that application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The current application provides a number of improvements to the sensor packaging design and methods of packaging a sensor to allow for ease of manufacture and cost reductions.